The ripple effect
They may not be jumping into phone booths to don their capes, but CPAs are doing their part to protect your interests
When a juicy financial fraud case hits the headlines, it’s not shocking to learn a CPA helped with the investigation. After all, you’d be hard pressed to find an accountant who doesn’t love—or at least have a talent for—working with numbers.
But did you know CPAs also play a role in mitigating wildfire risks? Or helping protect your savings so you can accomplish that goal of buying a new vehicle? Or influencing how waste disposal is handled in your neighborhood? Although the classic portrait of a CPA might inspire visions of an accountant typing furiously at a calculator, protecting the public is a large part of a CPA’s job, and it’s not a responsibility that’s taken lightly.
“When we make day-to-day decisions or do our everyday duties, we’re ensuring that the investments people make with their hard-earned money are taken care of and are on the straight and narrow,” says Michael Stuart CPA, Manager of Finance and Legal at Trojan Industries Inc.
As a CPA and a practicing lawyer, Michael knows all too well the role ethics plays for accountants. “In the CPA profession, not unlike law, so much of what we do is intangible,” he says. “It really does come down to your reputation and people trusting that you’re going to do right by them and by their organizations.”
And, according to the Government of Alberta, it’s the law. CPAs are part of a regulated profession under provincial legislation, which ensures all their number-crunching (and other) talents are used fairly, professionally, and with a high degree of transparency and accountability.
Holding others accountable
The work CPAs do extends further than an Excel document or the four walls of a cushy boardroom. “There’s a trickle-down effect to the work we do,” says Nadine Niba CPA, Alberta Regional Practice Leader, Risk Advisory Services, at BDO Canada.
With a background in enterprise risk management— including internal audit and business and technology risk—Nadine has analyzed the accuracy and representation of the financial statements in a number of different sectors. “Environmental sustainability and governance are part of the reporting metrics on the financial statements that serve to hold companies responsible,” she says. “For example, an oil and gas company that is mining and drilling will be held accountable for where they dump their waste, which affects everybody living in that area.”
For some CPAs, protecting the public has a much more direct and immediate effect on the population. “Our work can affect Alberta as a whole,” says Danielle Bertrand CPA, a forensic accountant with the Alberta Securities Commission (ASC), the regulatory agency that administers the province’s securities laws. “A fair, efficient, and transparent capital market promotes investment in our province and fosters innovation. It’s good for business expansion, which overall improves Alberta’s economic growth and strengthens the economy.”
When securities laws have been violated, the ASC may impose sanctions on the respondents, which can include administrative penalties, disgorgement of profits, market bans, suspensions or terminations of registrations, and other restrictions from capital market activities. Investigating wrongdoings and protecting the public from improper, misleading, or fraudulent practices not only requires a high degree of professional conduct and expertise, but also stamina: the ASC received 728 complaints in 2024 alone!
For Danielle, this number is motivating rather than daunting. “Every day is different. There’s never a dull moment,” she says. “I work in the enforcement division, so when there’s an issue that’s been identified—whether that’s from a public complaint or an internal referral—I’m part of a team responsible for gathering evidence to help prove the misconduct,” she explains. “Once a case has enough evidence, it moves on to the litigation team.”
Once upon a time, Danielle planned to pursue a career in law, and she says working at the ASC marries the best of both the legal and accounting worlds. For example, in cases involving alleged unauthorized diversion of funds—or fraud—forensic accountants, like Danielle, are tasked with finding the missing pieces of the puzzle. “We gather evidence through interviews and by tracing investor funds through bank accounts to figure out where the money ended up and if it aligned with the stated purpose of the investment,” she says.
High standards for a high-stakes career
Learning to navigate a strict code of ethics requires a deep commitment to hard work, professionalism, and objectivity, all of which is hammered home in the CPA program. Although Nadine began her accounting studies at the age of nine (which is the standard for education in Cameroon, where she grew up), she was blown away by what it means to be a CPA in Canada. “The CPA program is, flat-out, the most rigorous program I’ve gone through in my entire life,” she says. “And I have two bachelors and an MBA!
“It completely transformed the way I think about and see things. I learned to look at problems through more than one lens at once.”
This ability has proven to be equally invaluable to Mandeep Sandhu CPA, CA, Director of Internal Audit and Enterprise Risk Management at AltaLink, Alberta’s largest regulated electricity transmission provider.
“When you have a reputation for making objective, ethical decisions, you get called in to a lot of different spaces,” she says. “Our profession has definitely raised the bar for what we get called upon in terms of providing input or sitting at tables where our opinion is highly regarded.”
The pressure can be great, but for Mandeep, protecting the public is the foundation upon which she balances the expectations and goals of others, including stakeholders, executives, and government bodies. “When you feel caught in the middle, it makes it hard sometimes to make the right decision, especially when you’ve been trained to understand different points of views and perspectives,” she says. “But then you remember that your job is to mitigate risk, stay objective, and make ethical decisions.”
Mandeep’s decision-making extends to all pockets of the business. “A part of my team’s work is looking at what we do internally to mitigate risk in terms of maintaining our equipment and the work we do on and around our lines, which affects the safety of our utility workers and the surrounding environment.
“Protecting our communities and keeping them safe from things like wildfire risk are always top priorities,” she says.
Whether it’s looking out for someone’s family member installing electrical lines, ensuring an organization’s carbon footprint doesn’t wreak havoc on future generations, or holding a charity accountable for their funds, CPAs have a far-reaching impact on social good. “Regardless of your role, you’re maintaining financial integrity, you’re preventing fraud, and you’re ensuring compliance,” Danielle says.
These industry-specific terms may feel alienating to the average Joe, but they hit closer to home than you might realize. “When people are building their life savings to save for retirement or buy a car or save for a house, they want to have confidence that their money is going to be protected in some way,” Michael says. “What we’re doing as CPAs ripples beyond where you think it might. And that adds to the weight of that ethical obligation we have to the public.”